[weekender]

I visited Venice last weekend, I found it far more accessible than I imagined. Here is the text from my review of the hotel I stayed:

Novotel Venezia Mestre Castellana
Via Ceccherini 21
30174
VENEZIA MESTRE
ITALY

Tel: (+39)041/5066511
Fax: (+39)041/940620

The Novotel Venezia Mestre Castellana is a 4**** hotel and part of the Accor Hotels group, it is located about 10 kilometres from Venice Marco Polo airport, and about 2 kilometres from Mestre railway station. A taxi there from Marco Polo airport will cost about €40. The hotel has a bar, a restaurant/breakfast room and an outdoor swimming pool. To get in to Venice ‘proper’ you have to take two buses, the number 31H (32H on the return and 34H in both directions on a Sunday) for one stop and then the number 2, they are wheelchair accessible and cost €1.50 for the whole journey. If you choose to take a taxi instead of the bus it is about €30

Access to the hotel was level in to a large reception area with the check-in desk at the far end. Check-in was quick and I was given my key card and breakfast vouchers and shown where the breakfast room and the lifts where. There are three lifts and like most of the recent hotels I have stayed in everyone uses them, stairs are only there for use in an emergency evacuation. My room was on the sixth floor, it was not as spacious as the Novotel in Berlin and much of the space was taken up by a second, foldaway, bed. I did not realise it was foldaway until I was leaving, I would have asked for it to be folded away if I had known as it stopped me getting to the side of either bed. I had to get on to the bottom of the bed and shuffle up to the top. I also thought the bed was a little too high for me (and the foldaway too low.)

The bathroom was adequate in size to be able to move around comfortably. The toilet was situated in a corner with a wall to the left of it on which there was a handrail, there was no handrail on the other side though this isn’t a problem for me. Opposite the toilet was a bidet and next to the toilet was a stool with a large collection of fluffy towels on it.

To the other side of the bathroom was the wash basin which had a mirror at the correct height to be usable from a wheelchair. Also in the bathroom was the bath tub, this had hand rails on all three sides that there was a wall, it also had a shower over it.

To complete the bedroom there was a desk with chair, free Wi-Fi, a safe, a minibar, and a tv with local and international channels. There was also tea and coffee making facilities but as seems the norm they were placed on a high shelf out of the reach by people in a wheelchair…

Despite the few small problems noted above my stay at the Novotel Venice Mestre Castellana was very good and when I travel again to Venice I would have no hesitation booking another stay there unless I could find somewhere nearer to the islands of Venice ‘proper’.

(I would like to thank Mikey, my monkey puppet, for his assistance with this blog.)

The blog with pictures can be seen at: https://www.weekender.blog/2018/09/13/novotel-venezia-mestre-castellana/